The Fine Line Between a Tarte and a Quiche

The day had come to make the onion quiche, but turns out it’s called “Tarte a l’Oignon”. We also made Quiche Lorraine so this was a good opportunity to understand what’s the difference between the two terms (Quiche and Tarte). We had chef Sebastian back and we were almost on our own on this one. Almost no help or direction. The dough, we made two times before is the same dough of the apple tart just without all the amount of sugar. The onions we used similarly in the onions soup. So this is what we had:

More eggs, onions, cheese and butter

All the onions sliced and sweat in butter for about 30 minutes

The bacon was cut to lardons, boiled and braised to color

Spread in the bottom of the tart base

For the onion tart, a small amount, for the Lorraine, all the rest

Grated gruyere, most of it went to the quiche Lorraine and a bit to the onions

Important to have it as a buffer between the dough and the onions which are wet and could wet the dough, then it won't cook properly

Then we put the whole slices of onions on top of the cooked onions

My dough made into a tart base

Caramelized Onions

I made it dense!

Big onion circles on top

My quiche lorraine

This stage is the definator between quiche and tarte. It’s not if the tarte is covered or not, and not if it’s sweet or savory. Not an ingredient but a ratio of ingredients. We made an Appareil from eggs, yolks, cream, milk and seasoned with salt pepper and nutmeg. The amount of that mixture poured into the tarte base, defines if this is a quiche (a lot of mixture) or a tarte (a small amount of it). Where exactly does one ends and the other begins? The answer yet been found.

Taking our finished tartes and quiches to the oven, in a nice line. Chef Sebastian amused by his own creation, taking a pic on his iphone.

5 minutes before baking is over, we take off the rings and egg-wash the tart

Almost ready

Back to the oven for a few minutes

Ready!

Looks yummy!

We had to slice it so that chef will see our carving and the section, It's very hard to carve it straight out of the oven because it's still not set, but we had to anyway.

Top view of quiche Lorraine

Quiche Lorraine section

Onion tart section

Ready to take home for dinner

Got home safely!

We only had comments from the chef this time about the presentation and the carving. Chef said it looks very nice and I have to practice on my carving. When I got home the carving was so much easier. Tasting it made me realize we didn’t add enough salt to the dough. It was a bit flat because we used the sweet dough recipe with just a pinch of sugar and didn’t add more salt. Other than that, nothing like an onion tart.